Post/Author/DateTime	Post
IMarvinTPA 10-24-05, 10:31 AM	Hi, Atropals (http://www.imarvintpa.com/dndLive/Monsters.asp?ID=2') have a +97 to Diplomacy. It also has a +84 to Spellcraft and +91 to Intimidate. However, using max skill points per skill, it gets to 69, add in various ability modifiers, you get to 12 short for Diplomacy and 6 short on the other two skills. Monster skills should not have synergy bonuses added into them by default, but even assuming we did, they're still wrong as Diplomacy's synergy bonus is +16 and the other two get bonuses of +8. Anybody have any theories to help me with this? Thanks, IMarv
BelRex 10-24-05, 10:41 AM	Well lets see. It's 85 base(69 ranks + 16 cha). Sense motive and Bluff give synergy bonuses. It's +2 for the first 5 ranks, and +2 each additional 20 ranks. Lets assume that from both it's a total of 16, so that's actually 101. Does that help? If you check out some of the other monsters you see that some of their skills are off also, but they are pretty close.
IMarvinTPA 10-24-05, 12:05 PM	From what I can figure, they inappropriately included synergy bonuses in the listed skill modifiers of this monster. Not only that, but they didn't total up the synergy bonuses correctly and didn't provide enough synergy bonus to the skills. My problem is, I need to figure out why around 269 monsters (between SRD and MMII) have modifier that I can't quickly account for. Since I don't currenlty account for gear, this means I don't know what, if any, armor check penalties apply nor what bonuses they may get from various other gear. I may start doing that sooner than later. Although, I'm concerned about Force dragons and their robes of eyes. I think the bonus to the skills are not actually included as claimed. After I have adjuticated all the discrepancies in skill points, I can begin work on making my website allow you to advance them by HD. (You pick how many HD to advance to, and it does the work. You also may pick which bonus feats and attributes to change, using whatever one was last used by the last person who advanced the monster.) As I go through them, I'll report them for errata using the customer service system. I may also post my summary report here. IMarv
cwslyclgh 10-24-05, 02:30 PM	this maybe a stupid question, but are you taking into account the differences in number of skill points for creatures between 3.0 and 3.5?
IMarvinTPA 10-24-05, 02:36 PM	this maybe a stupid question, but are you taking into account the differences in number of skill points for creatures between 3.0 and 3.5? That's a very intelligent question. The data I have for MMII has been adjusted with the conversion guide, so I assume so. If not, I'll notice it when I find a bunch with too many or too few ranks in skills. So far though, I've mostly found monsters that have synergy bonuses calculated in that shouldn't or size modifiers that are not included. If I find a monster that just hasn't lived up to its full potential, I just call it a poor unfortunate monster and move on. If it exceeds its potential, I start beating on the stats until I can make sense of it. (I got the data from Andargor. I do own a copy of the MMII.) Most of my missing skill points aren't really missing. Knowledge (any [more than one]) skills only have one line and are accounted for only once. I need to split them into Knowledge (1st selection), Knowledge (2nd selection), etc. However, explicit lists such as Knowledge (arcana, religion) did get split out and are accounted for. IMarv